Fomer PSG and Toulouse manager Antoine Kombouare has called for players in France’s top division, the Ligue 1, to go on strike next season if the competition is not expanded to 22 clubs.
When the 2019-20 Ligue 1 season was canceled due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, PSG were named champions while the bottom two teams – Amiens and Toulouse were relegated.
That decision did not go down well in some quarters across France with many feeling the league has acted rashly in calling a halt to the season so soon. Clubs like Amiens and Lyon, have threatened to legal action following their dissatisfaction with how things were handled.
Kombouare, who is linked to both Toulouse and Amiens, has gone a step further by calling on the players to down tools next season.
He said the players should only backtrack from the planned action if Amiens and Toulouse are reprieved from relegation.
“The players and coaches must agree to strike at the start of next season if that does not happen,” Kombouare told L’Equipe.
“There will be layoffs. Even at the amateur level, it will hurt.
“Having players end their careers in this way is terribly unfair, and I have always hated injustice.
“Amid this suffering and concern born of this crisis, we must unite. We are not united enough. It makes me angry,” he stated.
Occupying the two automatic Ligue 1 relegation slots when Ligue 1 was abandoned after most teams had played 28 matches, Toulouse were 14 points from safety, having won just three games and lost 21 this season.
Amiens had a better shot at survival, lying just four points behind Nimes in 18th; however, both teams were relegated and will be replaced by Lorient and Lens from Ligue 2 next season.
Kombouare’s most recent management job in football was with Toulouse, and his son works at Amiens as an administrative director.
Despite this, Kombouare says he would feel the same way if any other team had been relegated.
Amiens have already confirmed they will fight the decision to relegate them to Ligue 2 and have started an online petition to elicit support from fans and drives support for a restart of the 2019-20 Ligue 1 campaign.
A statement published by Amiens read: “This decision is for our club, all our players, coaches, administrators, volunteers and supporters extremely fraught with consequences.
“Pending the publication of the minutes of board of directors’ meeting, Amiens reserve the right to contest this decision, since sporting merit, in this particularly difficult period for all, should on the contrary have led the various decision-making bodies not to pronounce any relegation.”
